Beijing ‘seriously condemns’ Japan PM’s war shrine visit
Beijing has protested against a visit to the controversial Yasukuni war memorial by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Beijing strongly condemned Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the flashpoint Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo on Thursday, saying it glorified Japan’s “history of militaristic aggression”.
“We strongly protest and seriously condemn the Japanese leader’s acts,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement immediately after Abe’s visit to the shrine, the first by an incumbent Japanese prime minister since 2006.
China would make “solemn representations” to Tokyo over his actions, the ministry said, and the Japanese embassy in Beijing said a meeting between Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong and visiting Japanese lawmakers had been cancelled.
Yasukuni is believed to be the repository of around 2.5 million souls of Japan’s war dead, most of them common soldiers but also including several high-level officials executed for war crimes after World War II.
“[Abe] should go to the memorial for the Nanjing Massacre rather than to Yasukuni shrine.”
“The essence of Japanese leaders’ visits to the Yasukuni shrine is to beautify Japan’s history of militaristic aggression and colonial rule,” Qin said, adding that Abe was “brutally trampling on the feelings of the Chinese people and those of other victimised Asian countries”.